Temps Up, Interest Down

A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that public concern about the climate and the environment has fallen dramatically over the last two years.

To a large extent, the decline can be explained by the more immediate concerns Americans are facing, such as losing their jobs or their homes. But global warming came in last among 20 voter priorities listed in the poll, trailing issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists.

At the same time, the evidence that climate change is hard upon us is not eroding, but rather mounting. A study the Chronicle reported on yesterday showed that Antarctica, long thought to be avoiding the climbing temperatures of the other six continents, is in fact also warming. Trees in the Western United States are dying at a faster rate due to higher temperatures, adding to the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere. Bay Area temperatures, and lack of rain, this month have been anything but normal.

Fox

Melting glacier in Greenland

Obama to the rescue! The new president does prioritize climate change. And he has been presenting his proposed solutions in terms of jobs and energy, issues which are climbing on the list of public concerns. The president also can and should continue to use his bully pulpit to call on Americans to think long-term and to look beyond their own narrow individual interests.

I’ve written before that, for me, climate change lingers in the back of my mind as a reminder of the extent to which the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Destroying one’s habitat is evidence of seriously out of whack priorities, after all. One’s house is one’s habitat, to be sure, but so are trees and food and water. Perhaps it’s because my job and the environment are enmeshed, but many of the issues on the Pew list seem tangled up to me: the moral decay of not caring about other planetary inhabitants, the undue influence of corporate lobbies that persuade us to jeopardize our own survival without giving much of a fig.

Have your feelings about the environment changed over the past year? Why or why not?